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English Language
8 sections available · 62 chapters available
Free English Language study notes for Senior Secondary (HKDSE) students. Each chapter below covers a key topic with worked examples and practice prompts you can take into the thinka app.
Paper 1 Reading — Part A skills
Skimming, scanning and locating specific details
Main ideas, topic sentences and text organisation
Contextual meaning of words and phrases
Reference words and cohesive devices
Inference, implied meaning and cause and effect
Writer's purpose, tone, mood and attitude
Summary cloze, table and flow-chart completion
Multiple choice, True/False/Not Given and matching
Paper 1 Reading — Part B1 and B2 text types
News reports and feature articles
Blogs, forum posts and social media texts
Advertisements, leaflets and notices
Letters, emails and letters to the editor
Reports, surveys and information graphics
Opinion columns and argumentative texts
Narrative and literary extracts
Cross-referencing and comparing multiple texts
Paper 2 Writing — Part A (guided, about 200 words)
Reading the situation, purpose and audience
Using given information, headings and openings
Leaflets, posters and promotional texts
Formal and informal letters and emails
Notices, announcements and short messages
Short reports and proposals
Register, tone and staying within the word count
Paper 2 Writing — Part B (extended, about 400 words)
Argumentative and discursive essays
Letters to the editor and opinion pieces
Speeches and presentation scripts
Short stories and narrative writing
Blog posts and personal accounts
Reviews of books, films and performances
Proposals, formal reports and workplace texts
Planning, paragraphing and developing an argument
Paper 3 Listening — Part A
Listening for specific details, numbers and names
Note-taking and form and table completion
Following instructions, directions and procedures
Speakers' feelings, views, attitudes and intentions
Accents, connected speech and moderate-pace delivery
Gap-filling, spelling and accurate transcription
Monologues, dialogues and multi-speaker exchanges
Paper 3 Integrated Skills — Part B1 and B2 (Data File)
Navigating the Data File under time pressure
Selecting and combining information from several sources
Posters, leaflets and promotional writing
Emails, memos and invitations
Presentation scripts and speeches
Reports, minutes and proposals
Appropriacy: register and tone in work and study tasks
The extended writing task (100 to 200 words)
Grammar in use
Tenses and time reference
Conditionals and hypothetical meaning
The passive voice and objective writing
Modal verbs and degrees of certainty
Relative clauses and complex noun phrases
Reported speech and paraphrasing
Articles, determiners and countability
Connectives, cohesion and sentence variety
Vocabulary and language functions
Word formation, affixation and collocation
Phrasal verbs, idioms and fixed expressions
Register, formality and communicative functions
The Internet
The Media and Publications
Protecting the Environment
Occupations, Careers and Prospects
The World of Sports
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